Unlocking human
potential through
leadership training &
development initiatives
field
review
David Day, Nicolas Bastardoz, Tiffany Bisbey, Denise Reyes, & Eduardo Salas
abstract
*
Most organizations invest in leadership training and development
initiatives, but which programs are worth the money is not always clear.
To help leaders and policymakers make informed decisions about
their leadership investments, we review empirical research from the
organizational sciences and provide evidence-based guidance regarding
the appropriate design and delivery of such interventions. Leadership
training and development are distinct initiatives based on different needs
and targeted at distinct albeit interrelated goals. We describe important
characteristics of both kinds of interventions, detailing features with the
most potential for influencing effectiveness and maximizing returns. Our
recommendations provide clear and actionable suggestions for choosing
the right interventions, providing the necessary resources to set the stage
for success, and evaluating such programs.
Day, D., Bastardoz, N., Bisbey, T., Reyes, D., & Salas, E. (2021). Unlocking human potential
through leadership training & development initiatives. Behavioral Science & Policy, 7(1),
XX–XX.
a publication of the behavioral science & policy association
1
The release of human possibilities is one of the most basic of social objectives
and leadership goals.
—John W. Gardner, American public servant and founder of Common
Cause, a nonpartisan grassroots organization devoted to upholding
core principles of democracy in the public interest1
w
Core Findings
What is the issue?
Organizations often
invest much time and
money in both leadership
training and development
without a clear idea
of what is required or
whether their initiatives
will actually satisfy
organizational needs.
How can you act?
Selected recommendations
include:
1) Conducting relevant
organizational needs
analyses and evaluating
scientifically validated
training initiatives with an
evidence-based approach
2) Creating a favorable
organizational
environment and culture
by, inter alia, removing
barriers to employee
training motivation
3) Setting the appropriate
expectations and
mix between longer
term developmental
interventions and shorter
term training interventions
Who should take
the lead?
Top-level organizational
leaders, such as CEOs,
human resources and
talent management leaders
O
rganizations make tremendous investments in leadership training and
development initiatives to try to release
leaders’ full potential and, ultimately, enhance
organizational sustainability and competitiveness. Leadership, after all, serves as the
glue that holds organizations together when
forces conspire to pull people apart. Effective
leaders are able to get people to cooperate
and to coordinate their activities in the service
of accomplishing goals. Leadership can come
from anyone, regardless of formal position,
which means that organizations benefit when
employees at all organizational levels have leadership skills.
Organizations need to invest in leadership
training and development when a strong
economy allows the prioritization of organizational growth as well as when social or
economic conditions require downsizing or
restructuring. 2 During times of change and
disruption, organizations often need to turn
to employees with unused or underdeveloped
leadership potential for help in reshaping and
bolstering the evolving leadership structure.
Indeed, the importance of leadership is widely
recognized. Billions of dollars are spent annually on leadership training and development,
with organizations reporting that, on average,
leadership training and development claim the
largest share—around 35%—of their learning
and development budgets.3
Although organizations often make large investments in leadership training and development,
they do not necessarily make these investments
wisely. In this article, we review key findings
from field research on leadership training and
development practices and highlight those that
have been shown to be the most effective.
2
In this review—which is targeted to top organizational leaders, general managers, human
resources and talent management leaders,
and other policymakers—we have three main
objectives. The first is to draw a clear distinction between leadership training and leadership
development. The second is to review evidence
regarding effectiveness that is gathered from
research studies done in the field rather than in
the laboratory, because field studies are more
likely to be applicable to the real world. The
third is to propose specific policy recommendations for implementing effective leadership
training and development, as well as to suggest
ways to identify practices that may not be worth
the investment of time or money.
Leadership Training &
Leadership Development:
What Is the Difference?
Leadership training and development both aim
to foster individual change and unlock individual
potential. But they have different timescales,
focus on different content and processes, and
generally target employees at different organizational levels.
Leadership training is a set of systematic
learning initiatives designed to enhance specific
job-relevant knowledge (what an employee
knows), skills (what an employee can do), and
attitudes (what an employee thinks or feels
about the work), with the goal of improving job
performance.4 Knowledge, skills, and attitudes
necessary for a specific job are often referred
to collectively as KSAs, and they provide the
foundation for effective work performance. For
example, human resources managers should
know how to recognize when an employee
needs emotional support, have the communication skills to convey their understanding
behavioral science & policy | volume 7 issue 1 2021
and discuss solutions, and hold empathic and
supportive attitudes. As another example, firstline supervisors should know how to motivate
the people they manage, have the supervisory
skills to apply incentives fairly and effectively,
and have attitudes that support drawing the best
performance from each individual employee.
It is relatively straightforward to design and
implement training to improve KSAs when the
resources to do so are available. Although this
type of training is easily replicable and therefore
not a strong source of a sustained competitive
advantage, 2 it is a powerful tool for workforce
improvement that some organizations still fail to
implement.
Leadership training is often used to teach
employees new policies or technologies,
to remediate the performance of leaders or
their teams, or to improve performance when
indices of business performance are declining.
In contrast to training, leadership development
seeks to enhance leaders’ ability to address
challenges that have no known or agreed-upon
solutions. These kinds of problems, which have
been referred to as adaptive challenges,5 cannot
be solved through the application of specific
technical skills. Leadership development takes
on the complex and holistic challenges associated with changing the behavioral tendencies
of human beings. Thus, the objective of leadership development is inherently more ambiguous
than the objective for leadership training,
because it relates to enhancing an individual’s
capacity to adapt and respond to the unfamiliar
rather than teaching specific KSAs to be applied
to well-known on-the-job situations.
Leadership development is highly varied and
eclectic in practice. Organizations do not agree
on what constitutes the best way to design and
deliver leadership development interventions.
Organizations may send employees to off-site
residential programs, have in-house initiatives
run by the human resources department, bring
in external consultants to design and deliver
programs, apply a mix of these options, or
explore other possibilities. Some organizations
value continuous, on-the-job development,
whereas others take more of an episodic,
program-based approach.
Whereas training is bounded and lasts for a
relatively short amount of time (for example,
several hours), leadership development initiatives tend to last much longer (for example,
several months). Leadership training is delivered
in a highly structured way and imparts much
more specific content than is true of leadership
development, which comprises multiple interrelated activities such as assessment, feedback,
coaching, and experiential learning. Leadership
training tends to be targeted at low- to midlevel
employees, whereas leadership development is
usually offered to senior-level employees.
Although we have explored the differences
between leadership training and leadership
development in this section, we do not mean to
suggest that an organization must choose one
initiative to the exclusion of the other. In fact,
whether to go with training or development is
a false dilemma: both are valuable tools when
it comes to realizing human possibilities in the
form of more effective leadership.
Leadership Training
Evidence Overview
As we noted earlier, the goal of leadership
training is to add new KSAs to an established or
emerging leader’s repertoire. But how does one
know whether the training actually improves
leadership performance?
The evidence is clear that leadership training
works when done right, suggesting that it is
beneficial for individuals and organizations. To
arrive at the recommendations presented in this
article, we relied on evidence from both individual field studies and aggregations, called
meta-analyses, of multiple field studies. In these
meta-analyses, researchers combined and
statistically analyzed findings from many studies
across many different jobs and industries,
producing results that are more generalizable than those of an individual study. See the
sidebar Key Insights and Recommendations for
a publication of the behavioral science & policy association
3
Key Insights & Recommendations for Leadership Training
Leadership Training Insights
1. Training consists of a set of systematic learning initiatives designed to teach specific job-relevant
knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) with the goal of improving job performance.
2. More specifically, the goal of leadership training is to provide a leader with new knowledge, add skills to
the leader’s repertoire, and establish the attitudes necessary to learn and apply the knowledge and skills
on the job.
3. Leadership training leads to a 20%–30% increase in learning, on-the-job leadership behaviors, and
positive organizational outcomes. The following recommendations can boost effectiveness even more.
Leadership Training Recommendations
1. Conduct a systematic needs analysis before instituting a training program.
2. Choose scientifically validated training initiatives, and assess their effectiveness for your organization.
3. Remove barriers to employee motivation to learn and apply skills.
4. When conducting training, include multiple teaching modes, provide opportunities for practice, and
offer feedback.
5. Help the training stick: Make it easy to use the newly acquired KSAs by providing resources,
opportunities for on-the-job practice, and incentives.
Leadership Training for a summary of key findings and recommendations related to leadership
training.
Christina Lacerenza and her collegues
conducted a meta-analysis of 335 studies of
leadership training programs and found that,
on average, such programs were associated
with a 25% increase in learning, a 28% increase
in on-the-job leadership behaviors, and a 25%
improvement in organization-level outcomes
(such as higher profits and lower costs, turnover,
and absenteeism).6
In the same study, the researchers analyzed
the effects of 15 different contextual variables
and found that some were associated with even
better outcomes.6 Among these influential variables were the location, timing, and duration of
the training; the methods of teaching; whether
the trainer was an external contractor brought
in to give the training or an in-house resource;
and whether a needs analysis was conducted
before training. Differences in these variables
can explain why an otherwise effective training
design may not work. For instance, a particular
training curriculum may show success across
the industry but fail to generate results in a
particular company because the organization
did not first conduct an analysis to uncover its
employees’ leadership training needs (see this
4
section’s Recommendation 1 for more about
such analyses).
The meta-analysis also specifically examined
associations between the 15 variables and
learning, on-the-job leadership behaviors, and
organizational-level outcomes. With respect to
learning, the results showed that it improved
when a needs analysis was conducted ahead
of time and multiple methods of delivery
(lecture, demonstration, practice) were used.
Desirable changes in on-the-job leadership
behaviors were associated with conducting
a needs analysis, using multiple methods of
delivery, conducting training in face-to-face
(rather than online) settings, and making attendance voluntary.
Better organizational results were associated
with mandatory attendance and holding the
training on-site rather than off-site.
Although neither voluntary nor mandatory
attendance is universally better when it comes
to training effectiveness, when on-the-job
behaviors need to change, allowing employees
to voluntarily attend training may help ensure
they have the motivation required for deep
learning and to apply that training once back on
the job. Mandatory attendance might be better
reserved for programs targeting large numbers
behavioral science & policy | volume 7 issue 1 2021
of employees with the intent of shaping broad
organizational results.
How to Create Effective
Leadership Training Programs
Recommendation 1: Conduct a Systematic Needs Analysis. How do you know what
content your leadership training should cover?
An effective training strategy begins with a
needs analysis, which explicitly defines the KSAs
associated with leadership effectiveness in your
organization and identifies the people who
need them. Needs analyses involve conducting
interviews, administering questionnaires,
and observing leaders. These analyses can
be conducted by in-house human resources
specialists or external consultants with expertise
in training design. Because leadership training is
not “one size fits all,” conducting a needs analysis can help avoid wasting time and money
on an ineffective, generic program or one that
targets the wrong KSAs for your organization. As
mentioned earlier, leadership training programs
that were chosen on the basis of the results of
a needs analysis outperfomed others in terms
of both learning improvements and transfer of
learned leadership skills from the training to the
job.6
When conducting a needs analysis and
designing a training program for managers,
it can be helpful to group skills into four main
types: intrapersonal, interpersonal, business,
and leadership.7 Intrapersonal skills relevant to
leadership include possessing self-esteem and
self-control, the ability to self-regulate, and
other personal-development techniques. Interpersonal skills include an ability to build effective
relationships with others. Business skills relate to
proficiency at maintaining operational efficiency
through strategic planning, monitoring and
evaluating employee performance, forecasting
and budgeting activities, and running meetings
efficiently and effectively. Leadership skills are
focused on building and maintaining effective
teams by identifying, attracting, motivating, and
retaining talented team members. These four
main types of skills are not mutually exclusive;
for example, leadership skills can depend in part
on intra- and interpersonal skills.
“An effective training strategy
begins with a needs analysis”
Meta-analytic evidence indicates that intrapersonal skills training is provided mainly to
high-level leaders, who may derive more direct
benefits from techniques—such as engaging in
self-reflection, overcoming mental road blocks,
and seeking social support—that help them to
cope with the cognitive demands and responsibilities of their role.8 Interpersonal training is
mainly directed at low-level leaders, who might
benefit from building skills associated with being
socially adept and developing rapport with
others. Business skills training is also targeted to
mainly low-level leaders; these skills are visible
and therefore relatively easy to assess in performance evaluations.
The final category, leadership skills training, is
offered for leaders at all levels who supervise
others, and attendees are mainly taught effective leadership styles and the tactics to properly
execute them,9 such as making sure employees
have the resources they need for success,
delivering support and encouragement, using
goal-setting techniques, and implementing
fair reward practices.6,7 Learning these tactics
is important for preparing those in leadership positions to lead others toward business
objectives in a way that is ethical, efficient, and
effective.
One program worth emulating dedicated six
months to conducting a needs analysis, which
incorporated benchmarking against comparable companies and conducting interviews
and focus groups with both new and experienced managers from the organization.
This needs analysis informed the design and
content of the leadership training program,
which included a business simulation, lecture
and discussion sessions, role playing, and case
studies.10 After the training, participants demonstrated increased knowledge about the role of a
manager, how to manage others in the company’s environment, and how to build a team,
a publication of the behavioral science & policy association
5
suggesting that, overall, the leadership training
program was effective.10
Recommendation 2: Choose Scientifically
Validated Training Initiatives & Evaluate Their
Effectiveness in Your Own Organization. A
saying in the training literature notes that half
of the money invested in training is wasted,
but no one knows which half. For this reason,
it is important not to select a program solely on
the basis of faith in its efficacy. Instead, select
training interventions that have been evaluated
and validated.
To help you select a program, we identify in this
section three key indicators of a well-evaluated
leadership training program.
First, the evaluation ideally used an experimental
design that randomly assigned participants to
groups, such as training and control (no training)
groups. Randomization provides the strongest
evidence that the training accounts for the
differences in the results between groups.11
Second, the evaluation should have examined
four main types of outcomes: trainee reactions,
learning, behavioral transfer, and organizational
results. 12,13 Trainee reactions refers to participants’ attitudes about the program’s content,
delivery, and usefulness. Learning focuses on
measurable improvements in desired KSAs.
Behavioral transfer means applying the skills
in the workplace. Organizational results are
the outcomes considered important for organizational success (for example, higher profits
but lower costs, turnover, and absenteeism).
Researchers suggest that to be effective, a
program should demonstrate positive effects in
all four of these dimensions.14
Third, the evaluator should have made sure
that the measures used to examine these four
outcomes aligned with the leadership KSAs
that were identified in the needs analysis as
being training targets (as already mentioned
in Recommendation 1 of this section). For
example, if a program is supposed to train
a leader in how to run team meetings efficiently, an observer can evaluate behavioral
transfer by observing specific meeting-related
6
interpersonal behaviors on the job. It would not
make sense to observe interpersonal behaviors if the purpose of the program was to train
leaders to handle forecasting and budgeting.
Just because a program has been scientifically validated does not mean it will perform
equally well in all organizations. For that reason,
once organizational managers have selected
a validated leadership training program and
implemented it, they should evaluate how
well the program has performed among their
own employees. Although many organizations
may not find it practical to do a randomized controlled study, it is certainly possible to
assess a leadership training program in terms of
employees’ reactions, learning outcomes, and
behavioral transfer, as well as organizational
outcomes.
Organizations should use self-report methods
to assess employees’ reactions because
self-reports reveal how trainees feel about the
program. However, learning outcomes should
be measured with objective knowledge tests.
As for transfer, observers can rate trainees on
changes in their behavior. Objective organizational data, such as revenue figures, can provide
evidence of a relationship between changes
in leader performance and organizational
outcomes.
Reactions should be collected directly after
training is completed, while they are salient
in the trainee’s memory. Learning outcomes
should be measured both before and after
training to allow for comparison. As for transfer
and organizational results, evaluation should
compare a project’s or organization’s status
before training, directly after training, and
weeks or months after training. In short, a
rigorous evaluation process should consider
outcomes at multiple levels and time points,
using various methods to capture a full picture
of the program’s effectiveness.
Recommendation 3: Remove Barriers to
Employee Motivation to Learn & Apply Skills.
Even the best training will have limited benefits
if the workplace is not ready for learners to use
their new KSAs when they return from training.
behavioral science & policy | volume 7 issue 1 2021
For employees, bringing a new way of doing
something back to work is unlikely to result in
lasting change without a supportive environment. This environment should be established
even before training begins by removing any
barriers to employees’ motivation to participate
in training, learn, and use new skills; such barriers
can include lack of supervisor support or lack
of an expectation of change.15 Research shows
that learners may avoid participating in training
opportunities if they perceive their immediate
leaders are uninterested in their skill advancement, and they may avoid attending training
events altogether in the absence of supervisor
support.16 Therefore, before employees embark
on training, ask them to set personal goals for
how they will apply new skills on the job and
convey the expectation that, after the training,
they will teach others what they learned. These
policies can signal to employees that their
participation and learning are important and
expected and that they will have some personal
accountability for transferring training back to
the workplace.
Supervisors can, moreover, boost motivation
by framing the training in a way that signals its
importance.17,18 One study compared situations
in which potential participants received a realistic preview of a leadership program (including
both favorable and unfavorable reviews) with
those in which potential participants received
a traditional all-favorable program description.
The potential participants who received a realistic preview of the program were more likely
to (a) deem the program to be appropriate for
them to complete, (b) benefit from the program,
and (c) show commitment and motivation to
attend the program.19
Motivation to change is useless without the
autonomy to do so. Just as autonomy is a key
factor in effective work design, 20 it is also a key
factor in allowing employees to use new skills
after training. Training is not likely to be effective unless it is embedded in a work system that
facilitates autonomy, responsibility, and a sense
that the work is meaningful. 21
Recommendation 4: Training Should
Include Multiple Teaching Modes, Provide
Opportunities for Practice, & Offer Feedback.
An evidence-based approach to structuring
training incorporates the following steps: (a)
deliver information, (b) provide demonstrations
for participants to watch, (c) include opportunities for practice, and (d) offer constructive
feedback during practice.18 In other words, after
trainees are exposed to the content, their new
KSAs can be solidified by seeing demonstrations
and engaging in guided practice. During practice, learners should be given feedback so they
can make adjustments and improve. Constructive feedback should also be delivered after the
official training is complete.
In general, this framework is necessary but
not sufficient for training effectiveness. The
methods used within each stage should also be
evidence based.
Evidence shows that using multiple methods
in training interventions enhances learning. 10
For example, the information-delivery component could include a lecture supplemented with
visual aids such as videos and written materials. 22 An exemplar transformational leadership
training program provided multiple opportunities for practice by following a lecture with a
daylong interactive session that involved role
playing, decisionmaking exercises, and a case
study. 23 Moreover, people learn more when
the information is presented by a professional
teacher or trainer rather than acquired through
self-study alone.6
When it comes to feedback during training,
both positive and constructive critical feedback
on behaviors need to be delivered, along with
suggestions for how to improve responses to
challenges or setbacks.18 Regarding posttraining
feedback, debates continue on exactly who
should deliver the feedback. 24 Many proponents
support 360-degree feedback, in which assessments are solicited from multiple sources, such
as the supervisor, subordinates, colleagues,
and clients. 25 However, meta-­
a nalytic findings suggest that receiving feedback from
multiple sources is not necessarily more
effective than getting it from a single source.6
Using 360-degree feedback or other multisource approaches may not provide returns
a publication of the behavioral science & policy association
35%
Average share of
organizational learning
and development budgets
allocated to training
and development
25%
Average improvement
in organization-level
outcomes from leadership
training programs
KSAs
Job-relevant knowledge,
skills, and attitudes
relevant for training
7
commensurate with the considerable investment in time and money associated with these
practices.
Recommendation 5: Help the Training Stick
by Providing Resources, Opportunities for
On-the-Job Practice, & Incentives That Make
It Easy to Use the Newly Acquired KSAs. Work
conditions set the stage for successful maintenance of training benefits. In the training
literature, these conditions are referred to as the
transfer climate because they can determine
whether trainees feel comfortable, engaged,
and motivated to apply their new knowledge
and skills to their work. 26,27 The concept encompasses more than having the autonomy or ability
to change the way that tasks are performed. A
study of a customer service skills training found
that transfer can be increased in a supportive
work climate, such as one that provides
resources, opportunities to practice new skills,
appropriate incentives, or some combination of
these features. 28
Resources can include mentors, checklists
to help review the training material, refresher
training, and feedback from supervisors and
subordinates. Leadership practice opportunities
can be provided by giving the trained individual a
leadership role on a low-stakes project followed
by a gradual increase in responsibilities. 6
Finally, financial rewards are an effective way
to encourage transfer, hold trainees accountable for using their newly acquired KSAs, and
demonstrate how the KSAs support the organization’s goals and values. 29
Leadership Development
Evidence Overview
Evaluating the evidence supporting effective
leadership development interventions is more
difficult than evaluating the leadership training
evidence. No large-scale meta-analyses have
summarized the literature on best practices in
leadership development. Moreover, until fairly
recently, leadership development was not of
keen interest to researchers. 30 However, times
have changed, and some recent research has
been devoted to understanding leadership
development as a set of practices and processes
distinct from leadership training. The results of
relevant research studies are summarized in the
following recommendations and in the sidebar
Key Insights and Recommendations for Leadership Development.
How to Create Effective Leadership
Development Programs
Recommendation 1: Leverage Work Experiences for Leadership Development. A widely
Key Insights & Recommendations for Leadership Development
Leadership Development Insights
1. Leadership development expands a person’s capacity to be effective in leadership roles, even as
responsibilities and circumstances change.
2. The goal of leadership development is to enhance an individual’s and the organization’s capacity to
address challenges with no known or agreed-upon solution.
3. Many of the effects—especially the long-term effects—of leadership development initiatives on
individual and organizational outcomes are unknown. The following recommendations are based on the
best evidence available. Adopting these recommendations should improve the return on investments
made in leadership development.
Leadership Development Recommendations
1. Leverage challenging work experiences to create opportunities for leaders to learn and expand their
leadership abilities.
2. Provide feedback and support.
3. Use evidence-based processes for structured reflection after significant positive and negative events.
4. Facilitate positive change in leaders’ self-views—that is, help them develop their self-awareness,
confidence in their leadership skills, and a sense of identity as a leader.
5. Give development efforts time to work. Long-lasting individual change does not come quickly.
8
behavioral science & policy | volume 7 issue 1 2021
shared tenet of leadership development is
that it is work experiences, and especially the
lessons derived from work experiences, 31,32 that
drive much of the growth in leadership competence.33 To spur growth, these experiences must
be challenging, because change rarely occurs
when someone is comfortable or complacent.
“change rarely occurs when
someone is comfortable or
complacent”
What types of experiences create challenge
and take people out of their comfort zones?
Researchers have empirically identified 15
dimensions of job challenge and organized
them into three categories: job transitions (such
as acquiring unfamiliar responsibilities and
having to prove onself), task-related characteristics (such as having to create change, bearing
high levels of responsibility, and gaining cooperation from coworkers without having formal
authority over them), and obstacles (such as
adverse business conditions, lack of support,
and a difficult boss).34
associated with enhanced development of
competence in strategic thinking. 37 Leveraging
work experience is clearly a key practice in leadership development. We note, though, that in
most of the research, the connection between
work assignments and leadership development
is correlational. Therefore, it is wise to temper
any tendencies to draw strong causal inferences
from those findings.
A tool called the Developmental Challenge
Profile incorporates these dimensions in a
self-report survey meant to assess levels of
challenge in a given job.34 This self-­assessment
tool can assist individuals and superiors in
understanding an individual’s work-related
challenges so as to leverage them in support of
ongoing leadership development.
Research has shown that key transitions experienced by early-career managers—including
taking on new roles; starting new businesses or
initiatives; or undergoing personal challenges,
such as juggling changes in work–life balance
or deciding how to confront an ethical conflict
at work35—can provide the kinds of work challenges that are associated with developing
leadership competency. Field research involving
upper-level managers who were assigned to
work in foreign countries has suggested that
leaders assigned to work in places where the
culture is highly distinct from their home culture
(a contrast referred to as cultural distance) tend
to display greater development in strategic
thinking than do managers who experience
smaller cultural differences.36 Research involving
executives also suggests that having worked
in a variety of capacities—as a nonmanger, a
manager, and a lead strategist, for example—is
Recommendation 2: Provide Feedback &
Support. Although having challenging work
assignments is critical for leadership development, some challenges may find people in
over their heads. When challenges are excessive, access to feedback becomes a key aid to
leadership development. Field research using a
sample of middle- and senior-level managers
has demonstrated that the relationship between
the intensity of work-related developmental
challenges and leadership development showed
a pattern of diminishing returns in the absence
of feedback. 38 As the challenges became more
intense, the gains in leadership competence
leveled off unless feedback was available, in
which case development continued even under
very high levels of challenge.
A valuable resource for support is one’s supervisor. Research has examined how supervisors
provide support to leaders who are transitioning
into positions of new responsibility. 39 When
supervisors modeled effective leadership
behavior and explicitly taught transitioning
leaders about their new roles, these forms
of support accelerated the development of
the transitioning leaders, as indicated by self-­
perceived knowledge and time spent leading
others. Again, these field studies were correlational, which limits the causal claims that can
be made. Nonetheless, the findings point to
the potential importance of providing access
to feedback and support along with on-the-job
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9
challenges to maximize opportunities for
growth.
self-awareness, leadership self-efficacy, and
leader identity.
Recommendation 3: Use Evidence-Based
Processes for Structured Reflection. Undergoing challenging experiences is important but
insufficient for leadership development. Also
needed is some way to enhance learning from
experience. Because it is possible to go through
an experience without learning anything from
it, mechanisms to facilitate learning should be
included in leadership development initiatives.
One such learning mechanism is a process
of structured reflection called after-event or
after-action review.40
A field study comparing high-performing and
average-performing managers at middle and
senior organizational levels suggested that
the high performers were more self-aware, as
measured by the level of agreement between
leaders’ self-assessments and assessments
provided by the leaders’ direct subordinates.43
Although the study’s focus was not leadership
development, its results suggest that having
self-awareness, and thus some understanding
of the impact of one’s actions on others, might
be associated with better managerial performance. Self-awareness might also play a role
in mitigating leader derailment—the failure to
advance professionally or the involuntary loss of
one’s job—which is most often caused by problems with interpersonal relationships.44
As the name implies, after-event reviews provide
a mechanism for individuals, in the wake of a
challenging event, to systematically analyze
their behavior, to suggest explanations for their
successful or failed actions, to compare analyses with others sharing the experience, and
to solicit feedback. After-event reviews are
typcially conducted in a group; however, the
technique can also be used one-on-one with a
coach or in a self-directed exercise.
The military uses after-event reviews extensively, and field research has demonstrated
that structured reflection on both failures and
successes is more predictive of performance
improvement than are reviews of only failures.41
In another study, researchers demonstrated that
using structured after-event review protocols
was associated with greater changes in individual task-oriented and relational leadership
behaviors over time than was a nonstructured debriefing protocol in the form of a
general discussion of an event.42 This study was
quasi-experimental, meaning that it had two
comparison groups but assignment to those
groups was not random. This design allows
causal inferences to be drawn from the research
with some degree of confidence, although
randomized trials would provide stronger
evidence.
Recommendation 4: Facilitate Positive Change
in Self-Views. Leaders’ views of themselves on
various dimensions can influence their growth
as leaders. Three of the key dimensions are
10
Field research has shown that managers’ self-­
reported confidence in their effectiveness as a
leader (that is, in their leadership self-efficacy) is
positively related to performance as measured
by subordinates’ assessments.45
Leader identity—that is, placing importance
on seeing oneself as a leader—may also
faciltate leadership development. Identities are
grounded in personal values, which determine
how people spend their time. People allocate
time to those activities that are consistent with
their identities. Developing and internalizing a
leader identity is thought to support leadership
development because it leads to spending time
and effort learning and practicing relevant skills.
Research has demonstrated that stronger leader
identities correlate with more positive trajectories of development over time,46 such that those
who showed greater improvement in leadership also showed an increase in the value they
placed on being a leader. Leader identities are
also positively associated with self-assessments
of leadership skills development.47
Although viewing oneself as a leader is a potentially important component of the long-term
leadership development process, little research
to date addresses how to change leadership
self-views effectively. However, the literature
behavioral science & policy | volume 7 issue 1 2021
on psychological empowerment provides some
potential guidance.48 Empowering employees
through project-management opportunities
is one way to help employees build leadership
self-efficacy and strengthen their leadership
self-view. This is especially the case when
the opportunties to lead a small project are
supported by other evidence-based practices,
such as supervisor feedback. Taking on leadership responsibilities, even in a small way, can
encourage employees to start thinking of themselves as leaders.
“developing as a leader might
be considered a lifelong
process”
Self-views can also be used to assess developmental progress. Because becoming an
excellent leader can take years, the effectiveness of development initiatives can be difficult
to measure. Assessing short-term progress on
self-awareness, leadership self-efficacy, and
leader identity can provide an indication of
progress, however.49
Final Thoughts
Recommendation 5: Give Development Efforts
Time to Work. Long-lasting individual change
does not come quickly; developing as a leader
might be considered a lifelong process. The
higher one rises in an organization, the more
complex the adaptive challenges become,
which in turn demands more growth as a leader.
Leadership development can be defined as a
journey to elite levels of expert performance as
a leader.50 A robust empirical literature suggests
that in most expertise domains, a minimum of
a decade of concentrated, deliberate practice
is required to achieve expert performance. 51,52
This finding helps to explain why on-the-job
experiences are so well suited for leadership
development: It is mainly through practicing
leadership skills daily during ongoing, work-­
related challenges that anyone would accrue
the necessary amount of practice time to
achieve expert levels of leadership.
Another reason it is important to give leadership development initiatives considerable time
to mature is that improvements do not necessarily proceed in a straight line. Indeed, aspects
of competence, effectiveness, and leader
identity tend to initially decline in response to
challenging experiences before recovering and
strengthening.46,47 Measuring someone’s progress too soon may give the mistaken impression
that a leadership development initiative is not
working.
With this review, we have primarily aimed to
highlight ways that leadership training and
development differ and to propose evidencebased recommendations for where to best
invest resources in leadership training and
development. We now briefly identify investments that are best avoided. On the leadership
training front, avoid investing in practices that
(a) are not based on a needs analysis, (b) do not
include mechanisms to apply the training back
to the job, and (c) have not been scientifically
validated. In terms of leadership development, it
is advisable to avoid investing in (a) approaches
that rely mainly on classroom-based instruction,
(b) initiatives that do not provide leaders with
prompt feedback and support, and (c) interventions that promise quick-fix ways of developing
leaders.
This is only a partial list of pitfalls to avoid. When
it comes to investing in leadership training and
development, the best advice is that which
applies to any domain in which considerable
sums of money are at stake: Caveat emptor!
Ask to see the evidence behind the claims that
a provider of training or development programs
is making. If the provider claims that such
evidence is proprietary, consider that a red flag.
Transparency offers the best defense against
exaggerated claims of effectiveness.
As we have summarized in this review, it is
important to know what your organization’s
leadership training and development needs
are and what effective initiatives your money
can buy to meet these needs and to invest
accordingly. Leadership training and leadership
a publication of the behavioral science & policy association
11
development are different entities, but they
should be complementary endeavors. Both can
unlock and cultivate leadership potential in the
service of enabling individuals and organizations to reach their highest goals.
author affiliation
Day: Claremont McKenna College. Bastardoz:
University of Zurich. Bisbey, Reyes, and Salas:
Rice University. Corresponding author’s email:
david.day@cmc.edu.
12
behavioral science & policy | volume 7 issue 1 2021
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